Women of Courage Page 9

  He stepped back, still smiling conspiratorially. ‘I thought you needed rescuing, anyway.’

  ‘I . . . what the devil do you mean by that?’

  Charles’s voice was friendly, like an uncle addressing an indulged nephew, but there was an edge to it, too, which Simon had not expected. The smile stayed on Simon’s face, and he lifted his chin very slightly, in a way that displayed the smooth line of his jaw to better effect.

  ‘I thought you were being — bothered — that’s all. By your lady wife. I know how you say she fusses.’

  Very suddenly, something snapped inside Charles. There was something about the insouciance of the tone, the self-consciousness of the pose, that hurt him deeply even as it appealed to him. Because it appealed to him, and Simon knew that and was using it.

  He turned away, strode to a chair, picked up his jacket. ‘She is my wife, Simon. Don’t speak of her in that way!’

  ‘But why ever not? I thought you liked me too! Isn’t that why you told her women shouldn’t behave like that, wantonly, in the afternoon? After all, men do, don’t we, sometimes?’

  ‘You . . .’ There had never been, until now, a moment when Charles had hated Simon Fletcher. He had met Simon on the ship returning from Egypt and it was only the third time in his entire adult life that he had succumbed to his attraction for young men. He had been virtually celibate for so long; he was still uncertain how he had fallen for this boy. At times he was appalled by the shocking risks they ran, at others enormously grateful. He had felt emotions he had forgotten he had ever known — tenderness, fascination, lust, extreme love. Exasperation, sometimes, even jealousy. But never, until now, anger. It hurt him more than he had thought possible. ‘You were listening, outside the door?’

  Simon saw it had been a mistake. He had only meant to tease, to flirt a little with his power over this man. The smile faded. He tried to look contrite, but succeeded only in looking devious and unrepentant.

  ‘Only for a moment. You were shouting so loud I could hardly avoid it.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’

  The two confronted each other, very still, silent. Charles had never said anything like that to Simon before. He felt the house echo round him with the importance of it.

  ‘You’re shouting now.’ Simon’s voice was sibilant, a whisper. ‘If you’re not careful the servants will hear.’

  And that would be the end of everything, Charles knew. Sodomy was not just a social disgrace, but a crime for which they could both be imprisoned. He would be cashiered from the UVF, unable to take up public employment or appear in society again. At school, his son Tom would be mocked, bullied, scorned. His wife could even divorce him.

  An affair like theirs was only worth the enormous risk if there was love, complete trust, mutual respect. If that was gone . . .

  From somewhere outside himself, Charles heard his own voice speaking again. It sounded like an echo from inside a bell; he had no idea whether it was really a shout or a whisper.

  ‘Simon, I think if this is the way you behave, it is time for us to end — what we have had. It has been a beautiful, a very good relationship but we always knew it could not last and this is the time to end it. I will give you good references, you will find a good post . . . ‘

  ‘No!’

  ‘What do you mean, no?’ As an army colonel, Charles was not used to having his orders questioned by anyone, certainly not by a young man scarcely half his age. But then, no one else had ever had such power over him. ‘If I say it will end, young man, that’s what will . . . ‘

  ‘I am not just a toy, you know, to be picked up and thrown down at your whim! What the hell do you think you’re talking about, Charles? I . . . ‘

  ‘I’ve told you never to call me that here! If anyone heard . . . ‘

  ‘I don’t care if anyone hears!’ The whisper was low, but the words were lethal. ‘You think that just because one day you grow tired of me, because that woman flaunts herself at you, you can throw me out in the street? Do you know what would happen if you did that?’

  ‘You would find another job, as I said. A good one, Simon, I promise. And I suppose, in time . . . ‘

  He paused. The vision was too painful. He didn’t even want to think it. Simon was less squeamish.

  ‘Oh yes, in time, another lover, you suppose.’

  Again the silence fell between them, long, terrifying. Had anyone heard them? Charles wondered desperately where Deborah would be at this moment — to say nothing of the butler, the housemaids, his son Tom. Oh no, please not Tom!

  Simon said: ‘It wouldn’t be such a long time as you think, either.’

  The smile had quite gone from the young face now. Simon looked as beautiful as ever, but cold, clean, deadly. He was not blushing. Nothing of what he said embarrassed him.

  ‘There are plenty of other men, you’re right. I met one in Bangor the other night. A journalist, foreign correspondent, can you believe that? Just over from Europe, special assignment, lonely. I could have him any time I wanted. Is that what you want — Charles?’

  Charles flushed. Despite his sense of danger his voice was enormous. ‘You mean you have . . . ?’

  ‘No, no.’ Simon had his finger on his lips, shushing Charles, almost smiling at the outrage he had provoked. ‘Of course not. I’m not a tart, not unfaithful, don’t think that, old boy. I’m just telling you. I can spot them, where ever I go. It’s not hard. And I need it, you know that. I like what we do together.’

  Charles’s anger was beginning to cool into a terrible sadness. Of course he had suspected that Simon might think and behave like this, but he had never seen it before. He never wanted to again. And yet, at least Simon had been faithful. And even now, he was so beautiful. I will never find anyone like this again, Charles thought, so how has it come to this?

  He said, huskily: ‘We don’t talk of it.’

  The sardonic smile had returned to Simon’s face. Tinged, too, Charles thought, with a hint of sadness.

  ‘No, not until now. But if you do send me away, you must know what you’re losing.’ He paused; an idea came into his mind. ‘I can’t help being what I am — I thought you loved me for it. But if it were a journalist, Charles, a foreign correspondent eager for things to tell his readers . . .’ The young man bent his beautiful, Grecian head to one side and tapped it gently with his finger. ‘There are a lot of things in here that I know now, because of you. I wouldn’t want to let them out, by mistake. It could have serious results, not just for you, but the UVF.’

  Another silence.

  Far away, Charles could hear the sound of the car, its engine throbbing outside the front door as the chauffeur brought it round. And the shouts of young Tom on the stairs; he had probably seen it.

  He said, very softly: ‘Are you threatening me now, Simon?’

  Simon stepped towards him. Suddenly, amazingly, the young man’s eyes were shining. Could that be tears in them, after such a statement? If they were he ignored them, met Charles’s gaze without blinking.

  ‘What I am saying, sir, is that I don’t want to go. I don’t want to end what we’ve had, I don’t want to be sent away. If I am sent away I don’t know what I’ll do. It could be anything. But there’s no need for it, no need to think of that. Is there?’

  ‘Yes, Simon.’

  ‘No, Charles! There is not! Please sir, think of me for a moment! I’m not just some guttersnipe you picked up in a bar — I need you, I like you, I admire you! I help you in your work, don’t I? I like being in the Ulster Volunteers, I feel proud! If I . . . if I said something wrong about your wife, I’m sorry, I apologise. I’ll never do it again. I was jealous, that’s all, I didn’t mean it!’

  For the third time that day, someone knocked on Charles’s door. ‘Car’s ready, sir!’ It was the butler, Smythe. Charles heard his own voice saying: ‘All right, Smythe. Thank you. Be down in a jiffy!’

  And then felt his own arms go out, to hold the young man by the shoulders. It was strange:
when they were dressed, either in civilian or army clothes, they never touched. Perhaps because of fear of discovery, perhaps because there was no social convention for it. They didn’t know what to do.

  But, as he felt Charles’s hands on his shoulders, Simon stepped forward, and for a moment the two embraced.

  And Charles thought, he didn’t know why, of Christ and his apostles in the garden of Gethsemane. Simon Peter. Andrew.

  And Judas . . .

  7

  ON THE morning her son was to go back to school, Deborah Cavendish got up early. Young Tom was in the breakfast room before her, hurriedly bolting a slice of toast and gulping a glass of milk at the same time, under the indulgent eye of a housemaid. He had already been down to the stables to see his new pony fed. His fair hair stuck out sideways and there were several wisps of straw on the stained baggy trousers and riding jacket he was wearing. That high, narrow forehead, the hooked nose, the intense proud face: all those things are like Charles, she thought. But not the grey-green eyes, the unruly fair hair, the freckles — that’s me, my side of the family.

  He looked at her apprehensively.

  ‘Please, Mother, don’t make a fuss. Father promised I could have one last ride on Bramble before we go — and there’s acres of time, really there is! I’ll just ride up through the woods past the ice house and then down to the three oaks. I promise!’

  Deborah looked at her only son and sighed. It was a wonder to her how quickly the little baby who had smiled at her from his cot had grown into this gawky, tousle-headed ragamuffin. The older he got the more mess he made, the more energy he had. Only the smile was the same.

  I wonder what the next one’s smile will look like?

  Not today. Forget that now.

  Above all, this morning, Deborah wanted to see her son smile and be happy. Even if that meant she had to deliver him to his school appallingly late, covered in dust and straw. So she sighed, touched his cheek with her fingers, and said: ‘All right. Just an hour now. Mind you keep your word, young soldier!’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’ The light of relief came into his eyes. He dodged away from her caress, embarrassed, and turned swiftly towards the door. But when he got there he glanced back, and she was rewarded with the smile she craved. ‘It might even be less than an hour, you know. Father says he’s the fastest pony he’s seen in the County Down.’

  ‘You just mind you stay on his back, now.’

  ‘Like a leech!’ He gave her a mock salute, and was gone. As he went out of the door she thought: If I lose him, I’ll lose part of myself.

  She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat with it cupped between her hands, her elbows on the table, staring moodily into space. Thinking back over the past few months. About the man, James Rankin, who had made her pregnant . . .

  Deborah first met James Rankin on the back of a cart in Dublin.

  She was there to be thanked in Rankin’s speech. She had been asked to make a speech herself but she had declined because she was too shy. When she saw how many people had come to listen, she was glad she had refused.

  The cart was parked in the middle of Sackville Street. It was surrounded by a sea of people, completely blocking the road. Faces and hats everywhere — workers in flat caps, young men in straw boaters, office clerks in bowlers, a line of officious policemen in the high pointed helmets of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. And women — mostly poor women in shawls with babies on their hips, but others in small round hats, wide straw hats with flowers on, some large ones with ribbons tied under the chin. And under the hats, faces, silent, hopeful, angry, desperate, puzzled, ecstatic, disapproving — listening intently to Rankin.

  Beside him on the cart, Deborah listened too, rapt. She thought he was the most magnetic speaker she had ever heard.

  He was a big man, young, with a huge powerful chest and a strand of long dark hair that fell forward over his forehead and which he flicked back constantly as he spoke. He had thick eyebrows and an unusually swarthy, lean, gypsy-like face. He wore a workman’s flannel shirt, hobnail boots, and trousers tied round his waist with a piece of rope. As he spoke, he radiated an electric animal energy. When she had been introduced to him a few minutes before, he had smiled cheerfully at her, and she had realised that his dark face had the most startlingly pale green eyes she had ever seen. A peculiar shudder had gone through her, and later, when he glanced her way once or twice during his speech, she had the odd feeling that the whole performance was for her and no one else.

  It was in the early months of the Great Lockout in Dublin in autumn 1913. The Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union encouraged their members to call for decent wages, and the bosses locked them out. Rankin was speaking of the injustice of it, the low wages the workers had always been paid, the threat of starvation stalking the streets of Ireland’s capital city.

  Deborah knew it was true. She had come to Dublin earlier that summer, as a delegate from South Down branch of the Irish Women’s Guild, to see what could be done for children in this dreadful situation. In Dublin she saw people crammed into the most appalling tenements — one, sometimes two families to a room, with no sanitation or running water. Barefoot children played in the streets, sometimes paddling in sewage. And yet often both parents were out at work, for ten, twelve hours a day. The father earned perhaps one or two pounds a week, a lot of which he spent on drink, to escape the awfulness of his condition. The mother earned a quarter of that.

  With her own son away at boarding school and Charles abroad in Egypt, there was little to keep Deborah at home. So she offered her help to the women who were working in the Dublin slums. At first they were suspicious of her, because of her wealthy unionist background, but she rolled up her sleeves and overcame that. She helped to run soup kitchens and cheap medical dispensaries for the poor. She visited evening schools which tried to teach illiterate women and girls to read.

  As the dispute went on, thousands of starving men, women and children began to roam the streets of Dublin. Boatloads of food came from trade unions in England, and Deborah herself spent large sums having food brought in from Glenfee. She helped cook it in the strike committee’s kitchens. But the bosses were adamant, and as the starvation worsened she conceived the idea of taking thirty poor children back to Glenfee for a fortnight’s holiday, where they could be fed and well treated and taken off their desperate parents’ hands. She imagined her great house filled with noise, laughter, children.

  She brought her friend Annie Haines and three other members of the Women’s Guild down to Dublin with her. It was then that she met Rankin. The day before they were to collect the children, the union had asked her to share a platform with him, to explain what she was doing and where the children would go.

  But before she was able to speak, the crowd was attacked by mounted police.

  She had seen them gathering at one end of the street during Rankin’s speech. Suddenly, a trumpet blew, and people started to scream. The horsemen began to trot forwards determinedly into the crowd, and a second detachment appeared, too, at the opposite end of the street. Two, perhaps three thousand people were trapped between them. As Deborah stood up someone pushed her and she fell off the cart onto the road. A man trod on her — a heavy hob-nailed boot stamped on the side of her knee. She tried to get up but tripped on her long skirt and fell. Boots kicked and stumbled over her. Her elbow and neck were bruised, her right knee wouldn’t work. Then, as the hooves and batons were all around her, a man bent, put an arm round her shoulders, heaved her to her feet.

  ‘Are you hurt? Can you stand now?’

  The pale green eyes, the dark floppy hair. Rankin. She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, no, I don’t think I can.’

  He pulled her wrist forward, bent, swung an arm behind her knees, lifted her onto his shoulder. Then he pushed and shoved his way with the rest. They were in a maelstrom of hurrying feet and legs and hooves and screams and sticks. Deborah was terrified. Once a policeman grabbed her hair so that Rankin staggered backwards;
but he swung round, punched the policeman in the mouth and kicked his shins until he let go. The crowd swirled them apart, and Rankin saw an alleyway and carried her down it, through a maze of sidestreets to a small square. There was a church in the square, and a couple of shops and a pub and a boarding house — and a blessed absence of noise. He lifted her down. She stumbled, and leaned against a wall.

  ‘Are you all right now?’

  ‘Yes, I think . . . thank you.’ She put her hand gently to her head and tottered sideways.

  ‘You’re not, though. You’re white as a sheet. Look, I’m staying in that boarding house over there. Come inside and have a sit down. Will I carry you across?’

  ‘No, it’s all right, I can . . . ‘

  But he picked her up all the same. More gracefully this time, with one arm behind her back and the other behind her knees, so that she had no choice but to put her arm behind his back and look up into the dark face that was so close to hers. He looked tired, strained, with beads of sweat on his forehead and down his cheeks; but although he had already carried her half a mile he was not breathing heavily. His arms and chest were so strong, she felt like a child again. He smiled at her briefly as he pushed open the door with his foot.

  ‘Not how you go home usually,’is it?’

  ‘No.’ Charles had never picked her up once, in all their married life. Only her father, long, long ago, before he died. But she was not a little girl with a hoop now.

  Rankin took her into a living room, set her down carefully on a sofa. ‘Now let me look at you. Where is it you hurt?’

  ‘It’s my knee, I think. I can’t let you see that.’

  ‘What? Modesty is it now? Stuff and nonsense! A knee is only bones and skin, we all have them, don’t we? Where do you keep yours now, let me take a look.’

  Abashed, she lifted her skirt for him, and there was the bruise, red already and turning purple on the side of her right knee. She felt embarrassed and ashamed of it, but his fingers were surprisingly gentle for such a big man. He flexed it carefully to see if it would move.